She (The Short Story)
Jamie Goetz

 

The Prologue:

After my brother’s accident we moved from our little town in Peoria, Illinois to Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia. There was pretty much the same stuff in Peoria as it was in Harper’s Ferry, only difference is that Harper’s Ferry is a historical town, so tourists are always hanging around here. I’ve done research and the historic thing never did anything for me, now don’t get me wrong, it’s the perfect place if you’re old and want peace and quiet. Being my age, there is really nothing to do here. I’m sixteen, and at least the people in Peoria knew what a mall was. There are a couple big differences but not much.

Recently, I’ve been having trouble sleeping. My therapist tells me it’s just aftershock of what happened, but my brother has been dead almost a year and a half, you would think I would be over it by now. Well it is possible that it could be because the nightmares have been about my brother. They’re so vivid it’s like I’m right there all over again. I dream about the car, his face, the blood on the stop sign. Tears welled up in her eyes as she recalled the one she had only hours ago. She missed her brother so much; it wasn’t fair that he had been taken at such a young age. He was only nine. He had been crossing the street when a car ran a stop sign going sixty-five and hit the little boy. The impact killed him instantly. She shook her head of the thought and went outside to see if anyone wanted to play kick ball.

The Story:

    “Over here!” came a voice that Meghan soon realized was her best friend Katelyn. “Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to go out on the lake, my dad just got a new boat, and wants to take it for a spin.” She said.
“Yeah, sure, I was bored since there is nothing to do in this town.” was the reply from Meghan.
“Oh, you out-of-towners are all the same.”
Katelyn said laughing while rolling her eyes. The two had met when Meghan was adjusting to her new school, she was eating by herself and Katelyn decided to sit down next to her. The two became instant friends.

They got into her dad’s 1984 Ford Mustang and he started it up. They pulled out of the driveway and onto the main road, which was only a single lane. They hadn’t driven more than twenty feet when they were forced to pull over to the side the road because an ambulance sped past them. They got off the shoulder and made the turn for the lake and when they pulled up they saw the ambulance down by the shore. There were also three police cars and about two dozen onlookers. Curiosity got the best of them; they got out and made their way toward the shoreline. As they neared the crowd, Meghan noticed that the people had been looking at the bloated body of a boy no older than herself. They got there just in time to see them put the thin blue sheet over the boy’s head. Many of the people there had been crying for their faces were stained with tears. Then something else caught her attention, she hadn’t noticed it before, but she looked around and saw a woman in a long black, flowing hooded cloak. Her face was covered by the hood, but Meghan thought she seemed out of place. She also thought that the woman looked somewhat familiar but she couldn’t remember where she had seen her before.
“Look at that woman out there by the edge of the water.” Meghan said to Katelyn, pointing out to where she was standing.
“What woman?” She replied.
“The one right over th…”
She stopped talking as she scanned the beach for the woman, who was now gone. The sound of Katelyn saying that she was probably just one of the nosy people, who wanted to know what happened, brought her back to reality.
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Meghan said as she looked back one final time just as a reassurance that maybe her eyes were playing tricks on her.

  Later that night, back home Meghan laid in her room, thinking about life, about how short it was and how you could be claimed anytime. The thought of the woman in the cloak came back to her, and she tried to remember where she had seen her before but she couldn’t think of anything that might make her remember the woman. She drifted off into an uneasy sleep, where she dreamt that she was walking down her street back in Peoria, and she got to the crosswalk and proceeded to cross it when she heard the screeching of breaks and then total darkness. All of a sudden she was above herself, and looking down. She saw that she had been her brother and was lying sprawled out all over the street. She saw herself running toward the little boy and cradling his head in her arms. She was crying harder than she ever had in her life. Suddenly she woke up and fell out of bed and hit her head on the nightstand. Feeling dizzy, she tried to steady herself by reaching onto the pane of the window facing her backyard. She pulled herself up and when she looked out the window her faced turned a ghostly white. The woman in black stood hovering just outside the window. She didn’t know how that could be because her room was on the second story. Her fingernails scraped heavily on the window. Meghan swore she could hear her rasping breath even through the window, still she never showed her face. The cloak was billowing in the night as a fog had risen around her. Suddenly the window flew open and the woman slowly started to make her way inside the window. Meghan screamed.

She suddenly sat up in bed and realized that she had had a dream in a dream. She scanned the room to see if she was ok, and then noticed that her window was open. Light suddenly blinded her as her parents flicked on the light.
“Meg, are you okay?” asked her father worriedly.
“Yeah I’m fine, just a nightmare. I’m feeling better now.”
“Have you been telling the doctor about your dreams?” asked her mother.
“Mom, I said I was fine, it was just a dream.”
“Well, we are only trying to help, I know you miss your brother but …”
“Mom,” she said angrily, “I’m over it, okay? I’ve gotten over it and I’m moving on.”
Her mother shot a worried look to her father, he shrugged and turned out the lights, “Good night” he said.
She lay back down in her bed and began thinking, what if the “woman” isn’t really a woman, what if it’s the Grim Reaper. She put the thought out of her mind and tried to go back to sleep. She went back to sleep after listening to the wind howling outside.

The next day when she went to school, she took the long way, hoping to be just on time instead of early like she usually was. She thought about what happened last night, and how it felt so real. Had the woman really been there? Meghan began to think that she was becoming insane. She arrived at school and Katelyn waved to her and came trotting over.
“Man, you look terrible; did you not get any sleep last night?”
“No, it was a rough night.”
She proceeded to tell Katelyn about her dream and Katelyn listened with disbelief as she told the part about the woman at her window.
“Well, maybe you ate something and it didn’t agree with you.” Katelyn said.
The bell rang and they hurried off to class. During the course of the day, Meghan couldn’t concentrate and her teachers were frustrated with her for zoning out.

After school, Meghan walked straight home, she wanted to be alone for some reason, so she avoided all her friends even as they attempted to wave or say hi. She opened the front door and let out a gasp when she saw the woman standing in the hallway leading to the kitchen. Her mother heard it and came out and saw the girl’s ghostly white face.
“Hon, what’s the matter?”
“It’s her…”
“Who?” Asked her mother.
“The wom…”
But she was cut off as she realized that her “ghost woman” was actually just a black winter coat with a fur hood that had been hung up on a hanger. “Never mind, I thought it was something else.” Her mother shot her an inquisitive look but then returned to the kitchen to continue the dinner she had been preparing. Meghan walked up to her room and sat on her bed and seriously began questioning her sanity.
“Surely each time couldn’t have been my imagination,” She thought to herself.
A few minutes later, a knock on the door startled her. Her mom poked her head through the crack in the door and said
“Hey Meg, dinner’s ready.”
“I’ll be there in a second.”
“Make sure you’re all washed up for dinner.”
She slowly made her way to the bathroom and turned the sink on so that lukewarm water came. She bent down and splashed some water on her face. She reached for a towel and wiped her face off; she popped her head up to look at her eyes in the mirror when she saw the black robed woman. This time Meghan saw a clear picture of her face. She turned around quickly to see the woman but she had vanished.

Megan ate dinner in silence that night, and her mother and father watched her closely.
“Hon, do you feel alright?” Her dad asked concernedly.
Meghan nodded and continued poking at her peas, which she had not touched.
Her dad jokingly said, “Ya know that little boys in Ethiopia would kill for those peas!”
She faked a smile and forced the peas down. She then excused herself from the table and went upstairs to her room and thought about the ghost woman. She had seen her face this time, and it looked like she was in her mid thirties. She had the saddest eyes, when she saw those eyes she was filled with a melancholy unlike anything she ever felt; but as quickly as she had come, she was gone. She needed to know why she was seeing this “thing” and why it would come and go so quickly. She knew she would be seeing her again, but when and where were the questions. She drifted off into another uneasy sleep where she dreamed of walking on the beach with her brother, hand in hand. They were near the shore and she could hear his voice and almost think it was real. She felt genuinely happy for once and they threw shells into the ocean and watched the tide come in and out. Her brother let go of her hand and ran down the beach as if searching for something. She chased after him and found him kneeling down in the sand picking up a shell. She noticed that his hand was bleeding and she went to go look at it when he looked up at her. To her horror, her innocent brother had become his mangled form after the car ran over him. He stood up and took a step toward her, his dislocated and torn jaw mouthed something that sounded like Shewanshoe. His distorted form fell lifelessly to the sand and Meghan sat up in bed with a cold sweat.

A week had passed and there was no definite sign of the woman and Meghan was beginning to think that maybe she had been seeing things the entire time. Her nerves had definitely calmed down and she was feeling on the right track as she sipped her green tea.
“So my parents are sending me on a vacation while they renew their wedding vows,” said Katelyn said chirpily, “They said I could bring you if I wanted.”
“Where are you going?”
“Key West!”
“Wow, a vacation would be ideal for me,” Meghan said.
“My parents will talk with yours tonight and get them to let you.”
Katelyn got up and walked out of the lunchroom obviously happy about having a tanning buddy. That night the parents discussed what needed to be discussed and the following day the plans were set.
“So you’re going right?” Katelyn said to Meghan as she walked in the door for homeroom.
“Yeah, but my parents weren’t too happy that I was leaving in the middle of the week and missing school.”
The next day all the bags were packed, the girls had their tickets and boarding passes and they were waiting in the terminal for their plane to open.
“This is gonna be great, four whole days of fun in the sun!” said Katelyn excitedly.
“That was corny, but yeah you’re right.” Meghan said.
The flight number was called and they headed for the gate, they made it in and took their seats. An overhead speaker made its presence with a little bing.
“This is your captain speaking, we are about to take off. Please keep in mind that we may experience turbulence at some point during the duration of the flight. Have a nice time, relax and enjoy yourselves. That is all.”
Another bing signaled the captain going off the air. The engines started and pretty soon the girls were down the runway and off into the air.

“I can’t believe we’re actually going to Key West!” Meghan said giving into the excitement. “It’ll be great!”
An hour later the girls were listening to the headphones when the plane started shaking a bit.
“This must be the turbulence that the captain was talking about.” Meghan said rather loudly due to the headphones that were just as loud.
The plane continued shaking and a bing was heard overhead.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we seem to be having minor engine troubles, it is nothing to worry about and we are getting all the systems back online. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
Another bing was heard. Meghan thought to herself that maybe coming on this trip was a mistake, something was going wrong and she didn’t like the feeling she was getting. Suddenly the plane jerked hard to the left and it dipped a little bit. Some one let out a shriek and began to pray. The captain’s voice came overhead and said,
“We seem to have lost control with left wing, it seems no power is getting to it, it is advised that all passengers open the overhead compartments and place the oxygen masks on. We are doing everything we can to get her back up and running.”

With a sudden force, the plane flanked to the left and dipped hard. Looking out the window would have shown that the plane no longer had a left wing for it had been shorn off. The sounds of prayers were all around the two frightened girls. Meghan looked around to see what was going on when she noticed that everything had come to a stand still. The only person still moving normally was her; she stood up and waved at a man in a business suit. She got no response and turned around to try someone else. As she turned around she saw someone stand up, and upon closer examination, she saw that this woman was dressed in a garb of black. The realization hit her as she realized she was standing next to the ghost woman. She screamed out for help but her cries fell upon deaf ears. The lady in black slowly made her way down the aisle. Meghan was backed against the cockpit door when the lady stood only inches in front of her.
“What do you want from me?” She cried out.
The woman lowered the hood of her robe and looked at Meghan. Meghan stared back into her eyes and was overcome with a deep sadness. Meghan felt suddenly at peace with herself and the surroundings. She knew now where she remembered the lady from. She had been present at the sight of her brother’s accident; and her brother had told her in the dream, she wants you. Everything became clear to her now and time was beginning to regain its normality. The back of the plane was ripped away and people were flung out the back still attached to their seats. The woman stuck her hand out as if wanting Meghan to take it. She looked back and all she could see was the ocean for miles and miles. She looked back at the ghostly woman still standing there with her hand out. Meghan pulled herself up and with tears rolling down her cheeks she took the woman’s hand. She suddenly felt warm and at total peace. A white light surrounded her and made her think of innocence. The woman never let go of her hand. The last thing Meghan remembered was feeling unconditionally loved by some unknown force as she was pulled out of the descending plane and into total white light.

Flight 713 went down that day. No one seems to know why it happened, the wings and motor had worked fine and there wasn’t any sign of trouble. It was labeled a freak accident and the papers called it a moral story accident. The last line of the article about the crash went: Always live your lives to their fullest extent because you never know when your number will be called.

      

 

 

Copyright © 2005 Jamie Goetz
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"